A New Year's Resolution For Bill Gates & Co. : Donate Your $$$ To Keep Antibiotics Makers Afloat!

Here's another idea for a resolution that  ought to spur action on behalf of America's dozens of billionaires (I'm writing to you,  Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) : Start pumping billions into the antibiotics manufacturers who are rapidly going out of business.  After all, a billionaire group in Tulsa is already pouring many millions into helping the city house the homeless, e.g.

"Hobo Cities" Growing - So Why Don't The Billionai…

So why not help out with this vastly more critical arena which could affect the lives of millions?  And no, the antibiotic drug companies don't need assistance because they are lazy or can't get the proper drugs manufactured.  But chiefly  because making critical antibiotics is batting on a losing financial wicket. After all,  any time you begin a regimen of the drugs (like amoxicillin)  it's for a limited time only, and not for a chronic condition -say like diabetes.  Hence, for antibiotic drug makers profit margins are too low to ensure survival over the long term.

Even as deadly strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria - from E. Coli. to MRSA-  proliferate around the world, big drugmakers are getting out of the antibiotics market, leaving many new products in the hands of tiny startups. But most new antibiotics for dangerous strains are selling poorly because doctors hold them in reserve until they’re absolutely necessary, concerned about creating drug resistance. And price-sensitive hospitals have been slow to switch to the drugs from cheaper generics.  This is in spite of superbugs killing more than 35,000 per year and sickening 2.8 million.  Thus the commercial prospects for these drugs are at odds with their value to society.

Case in point: Four years ago, antibiotics developer Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals Inc. had a market value of almost $2 billion. Now its shares trade for about 70 cents as investors flee the market for new drugs that kill bacterial infection.  In the words of Tetraphase Chief Operating Officer Larry Edwards:


“In my 20 years, I have never seen it any worse than this. Investors have shied away."

Edwards, a veteran antibiotics marketer, said it had become apparent that Tetraphase simply didn’t have the money to continue testing its other drugs while investing in the launch of Xerava.   To survive, the company said last week it would cut research, reduce staff and try to divest three drugs it has in development. The reorganization and other cost-saving efforts will save about $8.2 million annually, the drugmaker said last week. 


Meanwhile, the company plans to focus all of its efforts on marketing Xerava, a recently approved hospital drug that fights particularly tough abdominal infections.  Edwards,  quoted in a Bloomberg piece, observed:

“It has always been a challenging industry to be in. But now, everybody wants an immediate return.”

Another small firm specializing in antibiotics, Achaogen Inc., filed for bankruptcy protection in April, less than a year after getting approval for a drug- Zemdri,-   for urinary tract infections.  This is a drug so potent that it killed resistant strains in the test tube.   In other words, it's a drug desperately needed as antibiotic resistant strains proliferate.   But in June, the company, which once had a market value of about $1 billion, reached an agreement to sell most of its assets, including the "miracle"  drug  for just $16 million as part of a bankruptcy auction. (The drug was developed at  cost of $300 million.)  In the words of Kevin Outterson, a Boston University law professor who has studied market failures in the antibiotics area:

"The business model, the way we reimburse and pay for antibiotics, has just fundamentally crashed,”

These cases I've noted aren't exceptional.  A number of antibiotics companies have less than a year of cash left, said Alan Carr, an analyst at Needham & Co. Skittish investors are unfairly lumping all antibiotics makers together, regardless of the quality of the drug or potential size of the market, which differ from company to company, he said.

Unless something changes, “it is entirely possible we may see more bankruptcies,”  Carr said.

True, not all the fault is traced to impatient, greedy investors looking for rapid returns. Some small antibiotics makers simply misjudged the market's capacity by developing high-priced drugs narrowly focused on rare, resistant strains that make headlines.  However, they ignored less costly drugs for the partly resistant strains that intensive-care doctors see on a regular basis.  This according to Andrew Shorr, a pulmonary critical-care physician at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.  As he pointed out:

“There is a misalignment between what the physician sees as his or her unmet need and what is being developed."

Shorr ought to know whereof he speaks, as he's consulted for Tetraphase, Achaogen and others. Because doctors often don’t know which strains a patient has when they begin treatment, they’re unlikely to turn first to an expensive new drug.

My take is we have two options to consider: 1) Allowing all the antibiotics makers to go to ground and terminate in bankruptcies or selloffs- which would be disastrous for patients who desperately need the drugs or 2) Encourage civic - minded billionaires to each chip in a few billion to keep them afloat.   That is, prevent our already shaky healthcare system from losing one key support: the urgent need to provide antibiotics in the surgery, treatment (e.g. for ear infections, strep throat)  and ER settings, without which many more tens of thousands will die, from c. diff., MRSA and other infections.  And those will be mostly antibiotic resistant bugs for which are standard arsenal of drugs will be useless. 

See also:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-03/antibiotics-aren-t-profitable-enough-for-big-pharma-to-make-more
 ,,

Will The Newly "Unearthed" Antibiotics Save Us From The Approaching Deadly Superbugs?

"Nightmare bacteria” with unusual resistance to antibiotics of last resort were found more than 200 times in the United States last year in a first-of-a-kind hunt, according to a report by the CDC.  This hunt was undertaken to see how much of a threat these rare cases are becoming, health officials said Tuesday.  As reported in The Denver Post, the outlook isn't good.

Fortunately the problem remains relatively confined to people in hospitals and nursing homes, especially  who need IVs and other tubes, the most at risk. The reason is that these medical accessories create small apertures in the skin that can get infected. In many cases, others in close contact with these patients also harbored the superbugs (e.g. C. Diff.) even though they weren’t sick — a risk for further spread.

I am probably numbered among these given I took care of Janice when she had two severe bouts of C. Diff. in December, 2006 then January, 2007.  So evidently I may be a kind of "carrier" of the bug, i.e. harboring it but not sick from it. (I also make sure to take acidophilus regularly to create billions of healthy gut bacteria for those times I have to take an antibiotic - such as I did for gall bladder surgery in 2016 and for the 3D staging biopsy  last year.)

According to Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quoted in the Denver Post:

"Essentially, we found nightmare bacteria in your backyard.These verge on untreatable infections-  where the only option may be supportive care — fluids and sometimes machines to maintain life to give the patient a chance to recover".

In Janice's case, she had to be administered IV fluids - gallons of them - to replace the gallons she lost through C. Diff. diarrhea which can exceed a frequency of  20 times a day. Some physicians have even compared C. Diff. to cholera in terms of the frequency. (People become subject to infection by  C. Diff. when certain antibiotics, in Janice's case, amoxicillin, wipe out too many of the 'good' intestinal bacteria leaving an opening for the clostridium difficile to wreak havoc.)

Concern has been growing about a rise in bacteria resistant to all or most antibiotics. Last year, public health labs around the country were asked to watch for and quickly respond to cases of advanced antibiotic resistance, especially to some last-resort antibiotics called carbapenems.

In the first nine months of the year, more than 5,770 samples were tested for these “nightmare bacteria,” as CDC calls them, and one quarter were found to have genes that make them hard to treat and easy to share their resistance tricks with other types of bacteria. Of these, 221 had unusual genes that conferred resistance. The cases were scattered throughout 27 states. 

All of which elicits the question of whether there is hope for a new generation of antibioltics to combat the rising threat of antibiotic resistance and the horrific bugs that are enabled because of it.  

As serendipity would have it, the headline "New Antibiotics Unearthed" appeared in the WSJ of Feb. 13 (p. A3). wherein we learned:

"In a bag of backyard dirt, scientists have discovered a powerful new group of antibiotics they say can wipe out many infections including some microbes that arre resistant to most traditional antibiotics.":

In respect of the latter,, the lower graphic tells the sobering story of how we've very nearly come to a dead end in terms of antibiotic effectiveness.  Specifically, the initial orange marker for each antibiotic discloses the year introduced and then the black end mark shows when the antibiotic resistance was identified. Think of each black mark appended as indicating when that antibiotic's use ran out. 

According to the CDC, at least 2 million illnesses each year and 23,000 deaths can be attributed to antibiotic resistant bacteria.   Worldwide, deaths from the superbugs that evolve from the current crop are predicted to rise tenfold by 2050. So, it's a race against the clock. 

The ray of hope the WSJ reported concerns the discovery of a new class of antibiotics called malacidins, and was reported in the journal Nature Microbiology, e.g.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0110-1

This discovery is described (ibid.) as "being the latest in a series of promising antibiotics found through innovative genetic sequencing techniques."  These techniques allowed researchers at Rockefeller University in New York to "screen thousands of soil bacteria that previously couldn't be grown or studied in the laboratory." 

According to Sean Brady, a biochemist at Rockefeller's Laboratory for Genetically Coded Small Molecules, a senior author of the above cited study (ibid.):

"We extract DNA directly out of soil samples. We then put it into a bug we can grow easily in the laboratory and see if it can make new molecules which are the basis of new antibiotics."

The  researchers found  the new compounds appear to interfere with the ability of infectious bacteria to build cell walls. This is a function so basic to cellular life that it seems unlikely microbes could evolve a way to resist it. (In lab tests, the bacteria were exposed to the experimental anticiotics for 21 days without developing resistance.)

The ray of hope offered by this finding may be a bit premature, however. While all the new compounds appear safe and effective there is no plan to submit them for human testing  - an essential precursor to getting them into the Pharma market.  As Dr. Brady put it: "It is the early days for these compounds."   

In the meantime, he and his Rockefeller colleagues have set up an online citizen science project called "Drugs from Dirt".   It solicits soil donations from around the world to see if the right DNA might be found to advance the search for the new generation of antibiotics.  (The sandy soil that yielded malacidin came from the Southwestern U.S.)


Who knows? Maybe the next powerful antibiotic will be developed from soil taken from your own backyard.

There Are Many Other Ways Than Nuclear That Trump Can Fuck The Planet Over - Do Trumpistas Have A Clue?

It was laughable reading some of the Trumpista blogs that we on the left are merely losing it because we're afraid that Trump (lacking impulse control) may go for broke with the nuclear codes if someone slights him enough in an altercation.  Of course, the nuclear scenario - though scary - is not the only one that ought to instill trepidation. Especially among Trump voters!.

I already noted that his billionaire-plutocrat- heavy picks to man his potential administrative atrocity are numerous. Let's look at a few of the major calamitous consequences to get the Trumpistas' eyes and minds focused, and show how 'the Donald'  can bring the world (and nation) to perdition in numerous ways besides nuclear but perhaps not with the same speed.

For example, there is the specter of antibiotic resistance and the spread of novel,  resistant bacteria that can wreak havoc, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/12/antibiotic-resistant-superbugs-set-to.html

As I noted, health care cuts -  especially to Obamacare-  would put millions of our fellow citizens at risk of infection - and infecting others. If their ACA insurance coverage or Medicaid is taken away, and they deem it too costly to seek care outside it  - they may well just try to sit out a bout of c.diff. diarrhea (going up to 20x a day) or a MRSA skin infection. The results could be catastrophic. As opposed to 23,000 dying in a year, 2 million infected, we could well see 200,000 dying each year and 20 million infected.

Trump's very anti-regulatory stance, in other words, could produce  nightmare world where hundreds of thousands die each year and don't even have the health care available to use palliative treatments. Plus, the multiplying infections would be spread even worldwide.

Then there are the severe adverse consequences from destroying the existing climate change agreements to which the U.S. is a signatory. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/11/trump-appoints-denier-loser-looneytune.html

And;

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/12/trump-nominates-abomination-as-epa.html

The above Trump picks, in tandem with a current ongoing "witch hunt" to ferret out any climate scientists working on supporting anthropogenic warming, would mean within even fewer years the runaway greenhouse effect is upon us.  Right now, we are well on the way to reaching 4 C by 2100.  Prof. Gunter Weller estimated it would kick in when the CO2 concentration level of 600 ppm is surpassed which seems reasonable. If it is at 400 ppm now - by many conservative measures -  then doing the math (adding 2 ppm  per year ) we would see its initial stages by the early 2100s.

The conditions in even civilized,  advanced nations will border on the horrific in the pre-runaway years.  This will range from power grids crashing from overuse, to lack of water from utilities (because power is needed to pump water for use), to the spread of diseases such as dengue fever, as well as brain infestations by worms, e.g.

Tapeworm infested brain of which millions may be ushered in under warmer temperatures in the U.S.

Much higher global temperatures ushered in by Trumpian policies and a loose EPA, would also portend more rapid bleaching of the remaining coral reefs in the oceans,  destroying ecosystems, e.g.


As well as more rapid destruction of vital ocean bacteria, see e.g.

http://projectcensored.org/3-rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-threaten-permanently-disrupt-vital-ocean-bacteria/
In addition, because Trump wants to kill all "useless"  regulations, including for clean water, we can expect - in tandem with rising temperatures - an increase in brain parasites as well as brain-consuming amoeba in fresh water lakes etc.


Many of the parasitic brain infestations would be incepted by worms not currently common to the U.S. but which would find a home here as conditions alter to favor them.

Those worms include the species shown at left.

The real, understated risk is that we will be swamped by parasites- throughout the country and even the world. Right now, there are in excess of 9 BILLION worm parasites inhabiting the vertebrates of our world, this according to the author of the monograph 'Parasite REX'.

The human population alone may carry within it up to 2 billion worm parasites, including: hook worm, one of 5,000 forms of tape worm, round worm, trypanosomes, bladder worms, schistosomiasis-causing flukes and the protozoan that causes Toxoplasma (which over 1 billion may carry, mostly in their brains.)

Note also the massive parasite infestations, as well as spread of lethal, mosquito borne diseases such as dengue fever, will effectively reach global extent.

Truthfully, the threat from parasitic worms as climate warms faster - thanks to pro-fossil fuel policies- will only materialize if too many cuts to public health expenditures are also made. In that case, the public health resources may simply not be available to battle worm- infestations such as from tapeworm, hook worm and particularly schistosomiasis.   As the Wikipedia entry notes regarding the latter:

"In intestinal schistosomiasis, eggs become lodged in the intestinal wall and cause an immune system reaction called a granulomatous reaction. This immune response can lead to obstruction of the colon and blood loss. The infected individual may have what appears to be a potbelly. Eggs can also become lodged in the liver, leading to high blood pressure through the liver, enlarged spleen, the buildup of fluid in the abdomen, and potentially life-threatening dilations or swollen areas in the esophagus or gastrointestinal tract that can tear and bleed profusely "

Having seen villagers in St. Lucia suffering from this worm, I really would hate to see it spreading here in the U.S.  But I guess all the Trump voters, hyped up for their aspirations for false change, never thought of all these consequences.

Then there will be the havoc wreaked on ordinary workers here at home, through Trump's hired guns like Andrew Puzder who doesn't believe in the minimum wage. This means that 90 percent of working Americans will be unable to afford even basic rent or utilities in most of the U.S. and will have to depend on social services, e.g. food stamps, Medicaid etc. But WAIT! The Trump "alligators" in the DC swamp plan to kill all those too - as well as privatizing Social Security.

A trope being spread on wingnut blogs and websites is that "the good jobs are there begging if people want them". Which is rank codswallop. There are roughly 2 of these "good jobs" (most often in tech, others in trades like plumbing etc.) for every 11 Americans looking for work. Even if every one of the potential candidates for such jobs had the qualifications to do them, millions would go begging.

The other trope is that the fast food service jobs are "starter jobs" which is another load of horse shit. They happen to be the most generated jobs of all because so many people avail themselves of fast food - and hence that is where the demand is! Are the 'starter job' idiots trying to tell us that only HS "kids" should take them, and the others ought to "move on to plumbing, computer repair etc." If so they are truly lame, as well as abysmally uninformed.

Most appalling is when these fools say "Bring on the robots!"  full well having to realize that will mean an inevitable increase in food stamps, applications for welfare, Medicaid etc. But perhaps the anatomical condition of having one's brains in one's ass leads to such misfires of thinking. Alas, a trait too common among Trump voters..

Of course, Paul Ryan also plans to privatize Medicare using a "voucher" (premium support) program. That means most seniors - who live on barely $28,000 a year- won't have enough to get the health care they need, not to mention meds. They will end up like this granny being hurled off a cliff - by "Paul Ryan":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnE83A1Z4U


Finally, the Trump voters themselves, I am talking about the working class, will be left without a pot to piss in. No jobs, no medical support and even their pre-existing conditions will now be held against them.  As I noted in my Dec. 7 post, " the unemployed factory workers who voted for Trump basically voted for a pig in the poke.  .... Productivity dependent manufacturers who are now content with more automated processes, robots etc. are simply not going to hire back workers for whom they have to cough up benefits."  As for the Carrier (United Technologies) deal, that was a farce purchased with $7m worth of state subsidized corporate welfare. Is 'The Donald' really going to try to replicate that thousands of times over? I don't think so.

Besides, it entices any corporation to use economic blackmail to try to exert leverage: "Hey, Donald, we're planning to move 6,000 jobs to Mexico. Whatcha got for us?"

Minus Obamacare, minus Medicaid, minus food stamps, and jobs, Trump voters will be in a world of hurt and they will have had only themselves to blame.

The future for Trump voters, families - many others - is grim and there's no getting around it. A look into a possible future in a year, assuming the electors don't stop Trump based on the Hamilton remedy, e.g.

Here a girl boils oats in a pan in her folks' tiny wooden shack.

Yes, there are many other horrific futures in store if Trump is actually allowed into the seat of ultimate power so he can fuck the whole world at will.

But this is why the Hamilton electors must ensure this sorry- ass fuck never sees the inside of the Oval Office.

Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs Set To Wreak Havoc Under Trumpies

Superbugs exposed by special stain..

Imagine the U.S. in the throes of a massive superbug epidemic, perhaps MRSA or C. Diff. sometime in the next four years. It is possible, even probable, as Trump and his hired henchmen go about disbanding the Affordable Care Act, a point made clear by his appointment of Tom Price (R, GA) to the Dept. of Health and Human Services. This degenerate, Price, wants to not only abolish the Medicaid coverage for over 14 million but also remove the pre-existing conditions provision (i.e. that enables those with pre-existing conditions to get insurance under the ACA or "Obamacare"). In addition,  he along with Paul Ryan wants to replace Medicare with a "voucher" system where each person gets a small amount per year ($10k is often cited) to buy whatever insurance possible - and to cover all medical incidents, emergencies. If I'd been reduced to such a yearly voucher I'd have had to file for bankruptcy since getting cancer treatment 4 years ago and having gall bladder surgery (which came to $28,000 ) this year.

These dastardly moves would be bad in a normal environment but that's not the one we're approaching.  Nightmare superbugs, including c. diff.(which I'd written about before - that knocked Janice down in 2006-07 and hospitalized her twice) are on the rise and getting worse.  This is as antibiotic resistance rises, predicted to fell more than 2 million Americans this year, with 23,000 killed.

In Janice's case, by her second hospitalization in January, 2007, it was clear that the usual antibiotics were not stopping her c.diff - a severe bowel infection caused by the gram negative bacterium, clostridium difficile. By the time of the 2nd emergency room visit she'd lost over twenty pounds and one ER physician compared her condition to cholera. He shook his head and said in wonder: "It is a good thing she has Medicare and a good supplemental insurance. Without it, she'd have either had to fend for herself or be charged a lot of money for the ER visit."  The only antibiotic that finally rid Janice of her c.diff. superbug was the strongest then available, vancomycin.

We couldn't help but think at the time of others who might demur going to the ER, and thence spread the infection to dozens of people outside any controlled environment.  (In Janice's case, this second time around she had to be housed in a special separate, isolated room and those coming to treat her had to be specially outfitted.)

As I'd written about in a number of posts on mutation and evolution in 2010-11, bacteria like all living things evolve and adapt to survive.  Some develop cell walls that actually keep antibiotics out, while others pump antibiotics out when they get in. In other words, bacteria like c. diff. have developed many ways to deactivate or neutralize the action of these drugs.  As this resistance becomes ever more successful and adaptive, the superbugs get more virulent.

How serous is it? By mid-2015 the most powerful antibiotic used at that point was colistin. But in November of that year, specialists isolated bacteria that carried a single gene that made them resistant to colistin. In April of this year, the same gene showed up in bacteria in the U.S. According to Jean Patel based at the CDC and quoted in the recent AARP Bulletin (November, p. 31):

"And now we're beginning to get reports of bacteria that are resistant to virtually every antibiotic we have."

What are the political and health implications of these developments in the context of a Trump presidency? First, his anti-regulatory stance and advocated policies mean little or nothing will be done to staunch the widespread use of antibiotics, say in agriculture. This means that antibiotic resistance will continue to grow with each passing month.   This is especially worrying given that "approximately 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used in animals raised for food." (Ibid.)

Second, health care cuts, especially to Obamacare, will put millions of our fellow citizens at risk of infection - and infecting others. If their ACA insurance coverage or Medicaid is taken away, and they deem it too costly to seek care outside it  - they may well just try to sit out a bout of c.diff. diarrhea (going up to 20x a day) or a MRSA skin infection. The results could be catastrophic. As opposed to 23,000 dying in a year, 2 million infected, we could well see 200,000 dying each year and 20 million infected.  On the positive side, a recent survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that only 1 in 4 Americans favor repeal of the ACA. One hopes that these are mostly anti-government Trumpeters.

Third, Trump Co. may well gut or repeal Obama's $1.1 billion, earmarked earlier this year to fight resistant bacteria. This was a definite acknowledgement of just how serious the situation has become but its continuation is contingent on the generosity of the Trump administration. If they cut it completely, citing the need for more tax cuts for corporations and plutocrats, the antibiotic resistant battle may well be over.

One of the scientists quoted in the AARP piece, says at the end:

"I think everyone is finally beginning to recognize the deadly seriousness of the threat posed by antibiotic resistant bacteria."

Maybe, most of us do  - those who respect scientific facts and research. But those who invent facts on their own, like Trump and company, may not. In that case we are all likely for the high jump.


See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/70092/warning-this-trump-hire-is-hazardous-to-your-health-and-not-just-your-medicare

Mail Brane Blog: Readers Seeking Answers to Questions

Q.  Ok, I'm curious. In your Sept. 28 Mail Brane Blog the second questioner('Davante')  asked if he could go to FLA and "teach your cracker brother some manners". There's a link to his racist blog in your response but when I click on the link I get a message:

"Sorry, the blog at mytalkandthoughts.blogspot.com has been removed.  This address is not available for new blogs."

So what happened to it? - Julie, Ann Arbor, MI

A. I have been informed by a reliable source that Mike voluntarily removed it as he was "appalled" at the hate he'd spewed out again.  Of course, he's done this on at least two occasions earlier before changing his mind and resurrecting it again. So, who can say what the real reason is? My theory is - if he did take it down on his own - it was more likely a result of being blistered with comments, emails complaining about the content. He simply got tired dealing with all the flack so simply pulled the whole blog.

Q. Reading your assorted posts on the framing of Oswald by the CIA, the Oswald doppelgangers and so on, has my head spinning. Can a conspiracy really be this complicated? - Oscar W., London, Ontario

A. Of course! The mistake too many make is assuming simplicity along the same theoretic lines as for physical theories. Obviously, we opt to have physical theories,( i.e. quantum theory, Newtonian gravitation etc.) that are simple and elegant, minimal hypotheses and no loose strings, because these are also more amenable to mathematical formalism. Thus, the widespread presumption that any viable physical theory needs to be a hallmark of simplicity - not complication.

But let's be realistic here: human beings are not inanimate, unconscious objects like planets and moons in defined orbits,  or billiard balls - say that collide according to Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws of motion- making their future paths predictable. Humans by their nature possess the capacity for duplicity, formulation of self-determined agendas and concealed motives as well as the ability to misdirect others toward their (hidden) agendas. In any conspiracy of any magnitude (say like assassinating a President), therefore, one fully expects such devious capacities to overwhelm straight line logic - given the conspirators already know any would-be investigators would start off with that form of approach.

Hence, for the conspiracy to be ultimately successful, it would have to cover all the (ex post facto presumed linear logic) bases in advance, and build in misdirection at multiple junctures. The use of Oswald "doppelgangers" (actually impostors, and at least one physical double - deployed in Big D itself) accomplishes this. Yes, it is liable to make certain heads "burst"  and others spin- but then those heads, brains are too wedded to pedestrian and prosaic (what I call linear) logic anyway. They will always be the first to throw their hands in the air, and say 'I give up - this is too complicated' and opt to chose the simplest alternative, albeit totally wrong - which is the lone assassin bollocks.

This is why seriously pursuing something like the JFK assassination is not for everyone. The false leads, framing complexities, arcane CIA mischief -  false names, cut outs, constellation of differing files-documents as well as covert operations, narratives are usually too much except for deep politics mavens. Most Americans, sadly, can barely keep pace with our standard politics, far less deep politics. But those of us who want to get to the bottom of this dastardly crime of the century aren't easily dissuaded, nor are we easily distracted by lone assassin bunkum, tales or fake  "revelations" (which supposedly REELZ-TV plans to put on tonight). We know better, through long years of experience and having been already led down many dead ends and into false leads.

Basically then, there are few options for anyone really interested in the case:

1) You can hurl yourself into it and dig up thousands of files, documents and pore through them like the rest of us (researchers) have.

2) You can take the easy path, and just accept the simple (but wrong) lone assassin narrative - sticking with the likes of Gerald Posner, Vince Bugliosi, Philip Shenon etc.

3) You can adopt an "agnostic" approach and just say the case is too difficult to find any reasonable resolution, but knowing in the back of your mind, many of us already have (to within perhaps 95% probability).

Q.  I was shocked to read in your Sept. 25 blog of the persistent after effects from the radiation treatment for your prostate cancer. I would have thought given such significant effects the psa would surely have dived but in your blog post of Nov. 2 you say it's gone up.  How is this possible?- Anne, Dublin, Ireland

A. Sadly, Anne, no one knows the answer. All anyone can do is guess. Who knows why some 10 percent or so of patients hit the psa nadir within months of treatment, and it never goes back up? And why others (like me) experience a "PSA bounce" and then have to closely monitor the PSA over time for signs of "treatment failure". No one really knows and this is why more longitudinal studies over time for the different treatment modalities are badly needed.

One more interesting aside: When I had the PSA test done at LabCorp, I had to sign a form agreeing to pay for the test ($127) if Medicare didn't, given Medicare regards those in my "condition" as no longer needing it!  Now, this is strange, but maybe not. It suggests that Medicare regards the fact that once you've had treatment as ending the matter. Hence, a series of PSA tests - with rising numbers - led you to get treatment, but now that you've had treatment you need no further tests. Of course, this takes no account at all of the possibility of treatment failure or that the numbers can go back up. But given Medicare's solvency problems I guess it's understandable, so I expect to probably have to pay!


Q. In your Oct. 30 post ('Pills Made from Poop') you wrote that your wife got c. diff. after taking amoxicillin, but then to relieve it she was put on another antibiotic called flagyl- which didn't work- so then she was put on vancomycin. What I don't get is how an antibiotic can cause c. diff. but then it takes an even stronger antibiotic to snuff it out. How can that be? Shouldn't the strongest antibiotic make the symptoms worse if a lesser one starts them off? - Andre, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

A. Sorry, antibiotics don't work in that particular way. First, there appears to be a category of antibiotics which predisposes one to c. diff. Amoxicillin is one of these, and there are others which you can learn about by googling: "antibiotics predisposing to c. diff".  Let's also grasp that the initial introduction of amoxicillin essentially killed off nearly all the good bacteria which allowed the bad bacteria, the c. diff. to spread. By this stage, then, with the harmful bacteria spreading, an antibiotic powerful enough to kill them is what's needed. These are flagyl and vancomycin. The only possible effect these could have is: no effect (i.e. on antibiotic resistant bacteria) or eliminating the bad bacteria enough to allow the good guys to proliferate again.


Q. Reading your post 'The United States Of Tex-Ass' on Oct. 26 was a wake up call since I now live in Dallas. I never realized what a hotbed of hate the city was back in 1963, and to me it might explain for why Kennedy was killed there. Are they any other sources about the city back then, say from online sites, that I can read about it? I plan to get 'Dallas 1963' but in the meantime would like to see some other stuff. - Jared, Dallas, TX

A. A recent set of articles - blog posts has been appearing by Russ Baker on www.smirkingchimp.com based on his bestseller, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years. 

These appeared in seven installments on smirkingchimp.com with full article accounts in a separate blog link at www.whowhatwhy.com.   You can read his Dallas account here:

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/24/bush-and-the-jfk-hit-part-6-the-cold-war-comes-to-dallas/

It's headed up:  A Cauldron of Right Wing Americans, Right Wing Russians, and Nazis

 Be thankful you're not living in the Dallas of 1963!


Q. Why do you think the American congress is so reluctant to put a leash on the NSA, especially after they have spied on European allies and broken into Google's cloud sites to collect so much data? - Gerhard Remke, Bielefeld, Germany

A. My suspicion is that the spooks have tons of stuff on all congress critters, so effectively the threat of black mail is enough to halt any ability to pass effective control legislation now. I also suspect that they have loads of material on Angela Merkel, France's François Hollande and the UK's David Cameron.  Given this hidden leverage it was no surprise all the allies could be deterred from accepting Edward Snowden as a whistle blower refugee. The leaders were all too intimidated to do so. To read more from the actual author of this theory, see:
 http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/52437/what-s-done-abroad-can-be-done-at-home-too-is-nsa-spying-really-about-blackmail

Pills Made From Poop? Don’t Laugh!

It's no laughing matter to those 550,000 in the U.S. who at some point each year - come down with c.diff. or clostridium difficile infection. C. diff. now kills 14,000 a year and is ranked by hospitals as one of the top two or three 'superbugs' getting out of control. This is especially as there are now too many cases in the community itself, outside of hospitals.

What is c. diff.? It's a bowel infection but that barely begins to describe it. My wife got it back in December, 2006, after taking a prescription of amoxicillin for a stubborn sinus infection. But within a few days, the antibiotic had eradicated nearly all the 'good' bacteria in her gut, paving the way for a much less benevolent (indeed, vile) gut bacteria to take up residence. This was none other than c.diff. Related to the botulism and tetanus bacteria, this bug is described in med lit as a "gram positive, anaerobic, spore -forming rod which exists as a non-infectous spore (in the gut) and as an infectious form that can't exist long in the environment for prolonged periods." It was the latter form that we suspected got released from latent spores that created havoc in Janice's intestinal tract - causing gallons of fluid to literally pour out - in up to 22-25 diarrhetic releases per day.

Within days she had to be hospitalized on account of dehydration, whereupon she was put on an antibiotic called flagyl- 2nd ranked to the univeral powerhouse vancomycin. But then the bug got through it within a week, so, she was re-hospitalized and this time - and had to be administered vancomycin. This time, after the new course and being isolated in her own room, it finally worked. Most of those who die do so after being left with peritonitis, toxic megacolon, and peforation of the colon - from the violent expulsive force (which I pointed out to my wife - seemed to resemble cholera).

Since that bout of c. diff. infection 7 years ago, medical centers have scrambled for a treatment that doesn't require use of antibiotics - given how close we are to full antibiotic resistance. (See the excellent PBS Frontline series on this ). One of the first alternative measures was the use of 'poop enemas' - delivered uniquely to the victim - harvested from her family and bearing loads of good gut bacteria. At some point the enemas result in the bad guys being overwhelmed by the good, and the gut health restored to normal.

Now, thanks to Canadian researchers such as Thomas Louie at the University of Calgary, an alternative method has been developed where, instead of using enemas - the healthy variety of poop is administered via pills. Basically, it's being described as a "less invasive way" to get healthy poop into guts ravaged by the deadly c.diff. bacteria. So far, according to reports in the Canadian press, clinicians have treated 27 people succesfully after antibiotics failed to alleviate symptoms. This is huge news given a particularly virulent form of infectious c.diff. is all but indifferent to even vancomycin.

The process of extraction and preparation, according to Dr. Louie, isn't that difficult. A relative is first brought in and assorted stools obtained. Next, the material is processed in the lab to remove food, extract the bacteria and clean it. The residue is then infused into triple-coated gel capsule capable of surviving all the way into the gut. Be aware, as Dr. Louie points out, there's no stool as such left, only the necessary bacteria. The c.diff. victims thus are not technically eating poop, but instead just "stool bugs" after stools have been processed, diluted, cleaned. There are no smelly "shit" burps because the contents aren't released until they are well passed the stomach.

Louie has thus far found that 24 to 36 capsules are generally needed for treatment and patients can down them in one sitting. The pills thereby find their way to the colon and seed it with the healthy bacteria.

Don't laugh! This is all quite true, and the treatment had been announced two weeks ago at an infectious disease conference in San Francisco. This may well be the remaining life saver left for many more patients who contract c. diff.

For those who still wonder why I never got treatment for my severe bronchitis reported back in July (July 7 blog post) it was because I feared the use of antibiotics and the triggering of c.diff. I am certain I have the spores residing in my gut and that they've been there since Janice was ill - perhaps picked up by contact with contaminated surfaces, and then ingested with food - by hand. Who knows? At least now, I am not so deadly paranoid of getting c.diff. if I do have to take antibiotics at some future date.

Bad Cough for a Week? Don't Hightail it to the Doctor!

Around the last week of May, last year, I came down with some unnamed respiratory virus that mimicked the flu in almost every way except that I never had a fever. But I sure as hell had a hacking cough which my wife described as "sounding like the lungs were filled with fluid". Well, it got progressively worse over a period of ten-twelve days but I was determined not to run to my doc unless bloody stuff was coughed up or I could barely breathe. My concern was that if I went to the doctor I'd be prescribed amoxicillin or some other antibiotic, similar to what nearly killed my wife (with c. diff.) in 2006.

So I was determined to tough it out! Now, recent medical research news discloses that I did the right thing after all! According to a randomized trial published in  The Lancet Infectious Diseases there's little difference in the duration of lower-respiratory infections in people who took antibiotics and those who received placebos. Why? Respiratory illness manifesting as coughs, like flu,  are usually triggered by viruses—not bacteria—and thus are unaffected by antibiotics. Most often coughs and associated infections get better on their own.

In my case, it was roughly 16 1/2 days and the rasping cough had ended and I was out jogging and fast walking again! Was this too long? Hell no!

The authors of the Lancet study found that the average duration of symptoms reported in the medical literature was 17.8 days. That means my own cough distress ended more than a day earlier than the average duration.  The authors compared their findings to results from a poll of 500 adults,  asked to estimate how long they expected to be sick if their main symptom was a cough and they were not taking any medicine (under various scenarios with or without fever and with or without mucus). The polled sample said they expected the duration was about 7- 9  days. WRONG!

So, given their symptoms didn't end when they believed they should, these folks would have hightailed it to their doctors and asked for antibiotics, or would have been prescribed them by docs forseeing that patient expectation. So then, in another 3-4 days when their symptoms would have started alleviating they'd have wrongly attributed the outcome to the drugs when in fact it was the normal end of their illness.

This confirms for me why my decision not to jump the gun was the wise one.  As the authors of the Lancet article pointed out:

"This mismatch between patients’ expectations and reality for the natural history of acute cough illness has important implications for antibiotic prescribing,”

Well, yes, because then only in extreme circumstances should any doc worth his or her salt prescribe these drugs, which we are finding to be gradually become more useless as antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria spread.   As the Lancet article authors put it:

"Patients should be told that it is normal to still be coughing two or even three weeks after onset, and that they should only seek care if they are worsening or if an alarm symptom, such as high fever, bloody or rusty sputum, or shortness of breath, occurs”

That's sound advice and I hope more people, especially in this flu season, also follow it. One thing is many more times dreadful than a "long" e.g. 2 1/2 week) cough, and that's getting c. diff.!

Super-Bugs are Super-BAD!

The issue of antibiotic -resistant superbugs has more and more entered the repositories of the mainstream media, and well it should. Right now, we may stand on a precipice of wholesale generation of these bugs if we carelessly continue down the path we've been on - stupidly using anti-biotics for every little thing (as well as for viral infections like the common cold and flu) as well as stuffing antibiotics into our food supply.

In this light, it has been calculated that nearly four-fifths of the antibiotics used in America are given to livestock. There is nothing wrong with these animals, the antibiotics are administered totally out of capitalist obsession with profits and naked greed. Thus, they are administered to force healthy animals to grow faster, and more pounds means more money at the supermarket. The trouble is this activity provides enormous opportunities for the spread of superbugs. (See, 'The Spread of Superbugs' in The Economist, April 2, p. 73).

Two of the most ravaging superbugs are MRSA, an especially nasty form of staphylococcus that is resistant to many antibiotics, and clostridium difficile, or "c. diff." which actually arises when too powerful forms of anti-biotic kill the normal bacterial flora in the gut leaving only this nasty form to proliferate. Both of these are generally picked up while spending time in hospitals (one reason people shouldn't get too comfy in a hospital, and need to do their level best to leave asap). But this isn't always the case.

My run up with a superbug occurred indirectly, back in December of 2006. At the time my wife had been suffering from a severe sinus infection which had already gone on for two weeks. I was also suffering from severe nasal and chest congestion. She suggested we both see the family doctor and get an antibiotic to knock the infections out, but I told her I'd prefer to fight it on my own. In another week, after lots of coughing up loads of nasty stuff and inhaling from nebulizers nearly every night, I was through with it. Meanwhile, she opted to go for an amoxicillin prescription, given her by the Nurse assistant.

Within three days of beginning her course of amoxicillin, she was going to the toilet nonstop. We aren't talking about normal movements and with normal consistency, we are talking about cholera-like episodes accompanied by agonizing abdominal spasms, with the stools bearing the consistency of watery gruel. And we won't even get into the odor! By the fourth day she was so dehydrated, after running 22-25 times to the toilet each day, she went back to see the family dr. He immediately took a sample and the lab report came back: c. diff. He prescribed the antibiotic flagyl to off it (I know this sounds counter-intuitive but once c. diff. gains traction in the gut the only way to knock it out is via more powerful antibiotics!) Alas, after nearly a week, it didn't work, she was worse than ever and I had to rush her into the ER again, where they immediately put her on a drip.

Now hospitalized, but forced to share a room with another, I questioned the nurse about this, pointing out she was probably highly infectious. (Indeed, hospital studies on the distribution of c.diff. show it's only controlled by continual cleaning of all surfaces with bleach, every day and all the advisories insist patients have their own rooms to prevent the spread of c. diff. spores.) But the most the nurse would do is prevent her from using the general patients' lavatory, and restrict herself to a tiny "porto-potty" instead. It was humiliating for her and totally wrong.

After much more intense lobbying and complaining she finally got her own room where she was able to recover in comfort. She was also placed on the only remaining antibiotic with the strength to knock out c.diff. - vancomycin- which is why the doctors always save it for last, the final arrow in their quiver of protection. As one doctor told me, "Once the vancomycin goes, a lot of people will die." Fortunately for my wife, she was out of the hospital in another four days.

But our work at home had only begun, including disinfecting all her bedding and clothing, and washing them in high concentration bleach detergent. Then, going all over the house and wiping all the surfaces down with nearly 80% bleach solution, including telephone, and tables, chairs, tv, and everything else with which she'd come into contact. This was done every other day for a week, under doctor's orders.

What frightened me about the incident is how close she came to dying. Most patients with c.diff. die because the intensity of the explosive bowel movements causes the large intestine to rupture (from severe colitis and toxic megacolon). This is partly owing to the fact the bacteria 'spike' into the gut lining to force it to release vast amounts of water accompanied by spasms, as they destroy the mucosal lining. But a smaller segment die from dehydration, as with cholera. She came close to the last and that was why I fought like a Tasmanian devil to see that not only did she get to the ER but was expedited through it after the initial antibiotic failed.

This is but one story, but I'd strongly suggest people - readers recall it the next time they're tempted to have an antibiotic prescribed. It might be better, in the end, to just tough it out! For more on the benefits of the latter, please consult the work of University of Antwerp microbiologist, Hermann Gossens and his trials of 2007. He found that those subjects exposed to throat streptococci and given only a placebo were the only ones showing no signs of drug-resistant strains of streptococcus. The others, taking azithromycin and clarithromycin, did. Go figure!